The Gift: Last Christmas
by polybi
Summary: A young girl has an unusual wish. And only two people can help. Someone who is dead on TV is alive here (AU). But there is, for the first an possibly only time in anything I write, a death, so you have been warned (and, this, the K rating). SQ is assumed. This is part of my ongoing "The Gift" series.


Kathy Ann Vickers could not believe it when she saw it. She thought maybe it was an hallucination. Or a very nice dream. Yesterday was not a good one. She had become very weak, but then cancer has a way of doing that to you.

Her parents have done as much for her as they could. The doctors said that very soon, there would be nothing left to do anyway, except maybe make her comfortable. And they knew that the one thing she wanted was the one thing she could not get.

Kathy Ann wanted to see another Christmas. And time was running out.

Of course it would be easy to take out the Christmas tree put it up, get presents and play "Winter Wonderland" a lot. But Kathy Ann wanted more. She wanted snow. Big piles of snow that she could play in and build a snowman and everything.

But even Kathy Ann knew that wasn't possible. But then, the little girl always believed in miracles.

She kept looking out her window...it looks out on her street. She can see the apartment building from across the street and pretty much knew all the people who lived there, it was not a large one. She did notice the two young ladies who had just moved in, both blonde, one younger than the other. They would jog past the house every morning as Kathy Ann looked outside. The two women seemed cheerful, and it seemed that at least one of them would smile right at her as they passed.

* * *

><p>One afternoon, while Mike Vickers was at work, Sally decided to put Kathy Ann in the chair and wheel her out to the front porch. The house was not unlike a lot of suburban houses: white wood siding with green awnings, a chimney. a two-car garage. It was a nice home, but it's niceness hid the fact that between mortgages and Kathy Ann's treatments, the family was just about wiped out.<p>

It was was the mother and wheelchair bound daughter were outside the the two women jogged past their house. The pair stopped and said good afternoon. The parent and child smiled warmly. The two strangers seemed friendly; they did not ask about the girl's condition, but it was obvious they kind of figured some things out. A child in a wheelchair is a very conspicuous thing.

The parent introduced herself and her daughter, the older woman introduced the other pair as Sarah and Elsie. The little girl was very observant, and said that the younger woman looked a lot like a character in her favorite Disney movie. Elsie smiled and said she gets that a lot, but she doesn't braid her hair like that. Sarah said that she was a business owner in food services and that Elsie was in upper management, and that they lived in New England, but they came here to see what they could get into (the last said with a wink). The pair did not stay long, but Elsie did ask Kathy Ann one question, which was if Kathy Ann wanted anything in the world what would she want. The little girl smiled broadly and said that she wanted for Christmas to come early, with snow and presents and everything. And her own snowman. One she could play with and have as her friend. Her mom smiled, but it was a sad one. The doctors had said the girl had weeks. And they were being kind when they said that.

The two strangers then bid farewell, said they'd be around, and that was that. They never really saw the two again. Not a biggie.

* * *

><p>It was two days later when what people would simply call "The Miracle." would happen. Maybe Kathy Ann was the first to notice, maybe someone else, no will ever really know. All that matters to this was that Kathy Ann yelled for her mom and dad excitedly at the top of her lungs. Because of her condition she could not come to them, but the lungs sure worked. Panicked, the parents ran into the girl's bedroom. The child pointed to the window. The adults could not believe the sight. Mike told Sally to stay with their daughter, he wanted to check this out for himself. But before he could go outside, he had to go through the living room...<p>

A living room that, overnight, had been transformed into a yuletide wonderland. A towering Christmas tree, lit to the maximum, stood near the front window. There were decorations and ornaments, and gifts under the tree, stocking filled to the brim with stuff. It was obvious that someone was in the house while every slept, but nothing was taken. Before he went to tell his wife what had happened, he went to satisfy his initial curiosity.

The man's eyes grew wide as saucers. And so did everyone else who was wandering outside wondering had happened the night before. The entire neighborhood was blanketed with a thick blanket of snow! Snow was on the roofs, on the ground, on the cars. Strangely, not on the streets, thought they were very wet. Otherwise, it was a marshmallow world that Mike had somehow stumbled into.

Meanwhile, Sally was just putting the finishing touches on Kathy Ann's outerwear, which she pleaded her mom to get. She wanted to go outside in the snow, and nothing would stop her. Mom got child into the chair. When they got to the living room and saw all of the yuletide regalia, Kathy Ann yelped and screamed that Santa came early.

But the sight that really had Mike transfixed also filled Sally and Kathy Ann with wonder when they say it. The entire neighborhood covered in snow...and on the front lawn there was...a snowman. And on that snowman there was a note attached to it's belly, protected by a zip-lock bag. It was addressed to Kathy Ann: "Hi. My name is Olaf Jr. I'm your new best friend! Wanna give me a hug?"

The parents knew that protest was futile. They went back, put on the warm stuff they had put away, Daddy called in sick, Kathy Ann was wheeled out, and the Vickers family went out and frolicked in the snow. So did pretty much the rest of the town. Except maybe two blonde women, observing from their apartment across the street, both smiling, with the younger planting a kiss on the cheek of the elder.

It was indeed a miracle, not just the fact that Christmas had come in stealth, or that, at least for a little while one family could forget the impending tragedy that was to befall them. But that it snowed. Perfect, white, three inches of snow.

In Scottsdale, Arizona.

In the middle of July.

The weather service couldn't explain it. The Weather Channel, AccuWeather, and four network stations couldn't explain it. Hell, Al Roker couldn't explain it. No one could and no one cared, Kathy Ann didn't, because also, that snow could not melt for days. The little girl would go out every day and hug Olaf, Jr., but she got weaker so her time with the snowman grew less and less.

And eight days after the snow was first seen, after all of the premature Christmas presents were opened. After Olaf, Jr. could give all the love a snowman could give, the snow started to melt, as all good snows eventually do.

And on that eighth day, the angels finally came and took Kathy Ann Vickers home.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Storybrooke, ME<strong>_

_**The next day**_

It was a normal day in the town of magic, if those days existed. It was noon, and everyone was either at lunch at Granny's or at Any Given Sundae grabbing a snack. Kathryn was personning the cash register while Anna was dishing out banana splits and smoothies. The owner was gone for two weeks; she left instructions, and they were carried out, but that did not mask the fact that neither woman knew what the hell they were doing. This led to stock running out, orders becoming wrong, but the people people of Storybrooke were generally a patient lot, save for one grumpy drunk who, thankfully, was on a diet imposed by his girlfriend and her former Mother Superior.

Thankfully, at about 12:32pm, deliverance walked in the door...with a flourish.

I would not have been possible for this to happen in the days of what the town called Shattered Sight, but the city was happy to see the proprietors of Any Given Sundae, Ingrid Sarah Fisher and her niece Elsa literally strut into the store with gallons of fresh cream and take over, to the relief of the stand-ins.

Anna hugged her sister and quickly made a beeline to her house where her husband probably was waiting. Snow and David, along with Emma, Regina, and Henry followed in, which gave Kathryn a chance to hug her ex and his current on the way out.

As the door closed, Emma, the soul of to-the-point mentioned "that was quick..."

Ingrid asked Henry to put the closed sign out. Then the for the next hour the store was filled with magic as the Snow and Ice Queens turned jugs of fresh cream into Vanilla, Chocolate, Strawberry, Rocky Road, and in honor of the both the current and former/temporary mayors, Apple/Peach cobbler.

The store now restocked and the books examined (actually, Kathryn and Anna did a pretty good job), The seven sat and talked about the last two weeks. There was not much to say.

Emma: "So...what happened?"

Ingrid: "What I thought would happen..."

Elsa (wiping a tear): "It was so sad, but it was also happy. I'm glad we could do that..."

Ingrid: "I'm glad too..."

Regina: "So...the little girl...?"

Ingrid (pinching her nose as to keep from crying...: "It was peaceful. The services were nice and she's in a good place."

Snow (touching and holding Ingrid's hand for support): "You did good..."

David: "Yeah...none of us could do any better."

The five smiled at the pair from Arendelle.

Especially Henry: "So...how does it feel to one of the good guys..?"

Ingrid thought about it. How she has been trying to redeem herself ever since Shattered Sight. How she sent the counterspell to Storybrooke and ended the madness. How, over time, the town came to embrace her again.

Ingrid: "It feels nice, Henry. It feels nice.

Of course no one in Scottsdale will ever know that the wish that Kathy Ann sent that crazy wish to have one more Christmas...that it never got to the Wishmakers Foundation where she sent it. That it was intercepted by a young boy named Henry and a fairy named Nova, delivered to Henry's moms and a blue fairy, then given by his moms to an Ice Queen and a Snow Queen who had the power to fulfill that wish.

They could never know that this was, in essence, a test run of something bigger.

* * *

><p>But one person figured it out. And one night, not to long after that, Ingrid had a dream, where she met Kathy Ann again. Only this time, she was not in a wheelchair. She was standing. A beautiful, innocent child, as beautiful innocent children should be. And in the dream Kathy Ann told her that she knew that Ingrid and the girl she knew as Elsie were responsible for all that snow and why. And Kathy Ann just wanted to thank her and that where she is it's Christmas all the time and that her best friend was, indeed, a snowman named Olaf, Jr. Olaf was waiting for her when she got there, and that there was heaven for snowmen too. And then the snowman himself spread his wooden arms and asked if Ingrid wanted a hug. And she did. She hugged a snowman and that hug was warmer than Florida sunshine. Then Kathy Ann told the older lady that she and Olaf would be waiting for her. But it would not be for a long while.<p>

Ingrid was crying and as the images of the girl and the snowman faded into white. The Snow Queen awoke in her Snow Castle home, a pillow damp with tears. And something else...a candy cane. It was not there before. A candy cane. It had to come from...

And then Ingrid knew that the dream was real. And that the Snow Queen, indeed, did a good thing.

**THE END**

* * *

><p><em><strong>The usual disclaimers. Also thanks to GalVol76 whose Shattered Sight: Alternate gave me the device I used to reverse another bad decision by The Writers.<strong>_

_**Happy holidays.**_


End file.
